Monday, March 19, 2007

Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle delivery delayed to 2015; costs double

Before the report, the program was expected to begin low-rate initial production this year, with the first vehicle hitting the fleet in December 2010. The EFV is intended to replace the aging Assault Amphibian Vehicle.

The Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle program, which has long languished under cost and scheduling overruns due to unreliability during testing, now has doubled in price and won’t bear fruit until 2015, according to an internal defense report.

Program acquisition unit costs per vehicle are now expected to total $22.3 million each, up from $12.3 million estimated last August, according to briefing slides from a March 1 stakeholder report obtained by Marine Corps Times.

The slides went on to say that even with redesign tweaks, there is "limited evidence" that the Corps’ reliability requirement is achievable, it’s "unclear if a redesign effort of the current vehicle is a feasible solution," and also "unclear" if the time frame is executable.